Slash Labor Costs by 50%? The Secret of Riding Sweepers & Ride-on Vacuums；

Labor is one of the biggest costs of any facility manager. Workers who are using a broom or walking behind a slow cleaner are not engaged in more productive activities. What if it was possible to reduce those labor hours by half and get a cleaner facility to boot? The key is mechanization. The improvement of a ride on vacuum cleaner or a riding sweeper is greatly improving the efficiency of cleaning time and operating cost in warehouses, factories and parking structures.

From Walking to Driving: The Riding Sweeper Advantage

The math is actually easy, a person walks at approximately 3 miles per hour, a machine drives at 6-8 mph. Riding sweeper doubles or triples the area one person can cover. One person on a riding sweeper can collect dust, metal shavings, and packaging waste in a warehouse,work that would otherwise require a team of 5 pushing brooms. It is this efficiency gain that is the main reason for reducing labor costs by 50% or more for large, open floor plan operations. The riding sweeper makes a time consuming task easy and quick to do as a one pass process.

The New Standard in Efficient Cleaning: Ride on Vacuum Cleaner

While sweepers collect debris, deep cleaning is the next step. This adds an extra dimension to the concept of dust control with a ride-on vacuum cleaner. A ride on vacuum cleaner not only sucks up dust from the floor, but also from the air, and unlike traditional dust mops, it actually lifts the dust. This is especially important for factories that have sensitive equipment or a food processing zone where dust can be a potential contaminant. The ride on vacuum cleaner directly saves labor exposure and cost as one operator will now drive and deep clean a 50,000 square foot warehouse in two hours as opposed to four hours.

Versatility of the Electric Floor Cleaner

Modern surfaces include concrete, epoxy, tile and even rubber. The right electric floor cleaner will seamlessly move from one to another. The top electric floor cleaner models have interchangeable heads (brushes and pad drivers), and have water flow settings that allow you to use them for scrubbing and sweeping. A ride-on is a platform equipped with an electric floor cleaner gives you the speed of a vehicle and the deep-cleaning power of a professional machine. This equates to one employee, one shift and no backbreaking manual work at the end of the shift.

The Technology Driving the 50% Savings

In what way do these machines save on labor? By removing three inefficient activities: walking, back and forth passes and trips to the dumpster.

Walking: An operator is mounted on a riding sweeper, so that no energy is being used on steps and the operator is using only this for steering.

Passes: A large ride-on vacuum cleaner path (usually 35+ inches) allows for more coverage in fewer passes.

Dumping: Today's electric floor cleaner units have high lift hoppers which dump directly into dumpsters without shoveling.

In addition, high tech battery systems enable electric floor cleaner models to operate for extended periods-up to 8 hours-without recharging,eliminating downtime. Adding to that, one machine can replace three manual laborers, the ROI will typically be realized in less than 6 months.

Real-World Applications and ROI

Let's say that there is a distribution center that has 100,000 square feet of concrete floors. A team of four workers using push brooms and walk-behind vacuums spends three hours per day-totaling 12 labor hours daily. Switching to a one riding sweeper and one ride-on a vacuum cleaner reduces the time to 1.5 hours for a single worker-just 1.5 total labor hours per day. This would save more than $60,000 a year, based on just one source, labor.

Retail parking lots, airport hangars and convention centers see similar results. Payroll is reduced and employee morale is boosted (no one wants to push a broom all day, right!) and the initial cost of the electric floor cleaner or ride-on vacuum cleaner is soon recovered.

Summary

Reducing labor expenses by 50% is not a dream, it is what industrial automation can achieve. Your facility can clean faster, cleaner and with less personnel by converting to a riding sweeper, ride-on vacuum cleaner or a versatile electric floor cleaner. When improving your bottom line and achieving spotless floors are the goals, the secret is simple: let the machines do the walking.